The present invention relates to an apparatus for collecting and laying items, especially road traffic items such as traffic cones.
In today's fast moving world the motoring public demands ever greater quality from our road networks, in addition to improved standards of safety. This requires continued maintenance of our roadways to ensure the structural integrity of same, as well as the improvement of existing, or retro fitting of new, safety measures. As a result, the use of temporary road management systems has become an integral part of our road management techniques, and in particular the use of traffic cones, which are often used in significant numbers. For example, if a safety barrier is to be fitted along the central reservation of a carriageway, it is usually necessary to cordon off the central reservation using traffic cones, which may need to be deployed in large numbers and possibly over several kilometers at any given time.
The deployment and collection of such a large number of traffic cones is a time consuming and physically demanding task. In order to simplify this process, a cone dispensing/collecting apparatus may be employed, for example of the type shown in the applicant's earlier UK Pat. No. GB2325683, the details of which are incorporated herein by reference. The apparatus of GB2325683 removes the need for workers to be on the road while traffic cones are being laid or collected. This is particularly important on high speed roads and motorways. The cone dispensing/collecting apparatus of GB2325683 suffers from a number of drawbacks. In particular, the setting out and taking down of a “cone taper”, a term commonly used within the industry to define the tapered off area commonly used at the start of a road closure, can prove difficult to achieve with the apparatus of GB2325683. In addition, the apparatus of GB2325683 cannot reliably be used to collect traffic cones having any form of attachment secured to or adjacent the top thereof, for example a beacon or road sign.